


To Explore New Worlds

by drladybird



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Mythology/Religion, Custom Shepard (Mass Effect), Earthborn (Mass Effect), F/F, Fantastic Racism, Flirting, Fluff and Humor, Forbidden Love, Friendship, Gen, ME:Evolution compliant, Mass Effect 1, Mutual Pining, Ruthless (Mass Effect), Shepard and Ash get less xenophobic, Shepard's first time on the Citadel, War Hero (Mass Effect), Weird Space Food, alien invasion of corset, baby photos, cute baby aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21545308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drladybird/pseuds/drladybird
Summary: Shepard never asked to be a Spectre or a diplomat. But if that's the best way to protect humanity, she'll do her duty.She certainly didn't sign up for celebrity. But if her celebrity duties are listening to flattery and cuddling baby turians, that's easy. Adult turians are terrifying - who'd have thought the babies were so tiny and adorable?Kid, please stop hiding in my cleavage. Please go back to your daddy. Or I’ll have to undress in public to return you. Please?
Relationships: Female Shepard & Garrus Vakarian, Female Shepard/Ashley Williams, Garrus Vakarian & Ashley Williams
Comments: 20
Kudos: 54





	To Explore New Worlds

The Presidium had its own fake evening, with a pink and gold sunset shining off the artificial lakes. Little alien birds were warbling in the flowering trees. They glittered like tinsel, but they’d left droppings on the pavement, so they were probably real.

Cayley Shepard glared at the lump of battered meat, trying to pretend it was fish, or chicken, or anything except a hand-sized fleshy grub. It had kept writhing right up till the street food vendor sliced off its head, and twitched on and off while he was gutting and stuffing it, and she half expected it to struggle again. The vendor had smiled the whole time.

_Frog people eat bugs? Makes sense. Frog people talked everyone else into eating bugs? Why?_

Next to Shepard on the Presidium bench, Sergeant Williams picked up her own deep-fried grub and took a huge bite. It didn’t twitch and she didn’t spit it out.

Shepard had probably eaten worse. _Imagine it’s a chicken kebab._ She took a bite of insect and...

It was actually pretty good! Juicy white meat that you could mistake for some sort of fish, covered in spicy batter and stuffed with crunchy pickles.

Garrus Vakarian was watching from the next bench over. “Thought you’d like Khua’s stall,” he drawled. “Never met a levo who didn’t.” 

The streetlights glinted off his long teeth.

Looking at it rationally, he’d been extraordinarily helpful. He’d fought for Shepard, and he'd put his career on the line when the Council tried to fuck them around. Needed a common sense transfusion, but so did a lot of young soldiers. He’d offered to show Shepard and Williams around the Citadel, while the Normandy waited in dock for its shiny new Mako and three crates of missing MREs, and it would have been rude to say no.

But it was hard to be rational about a man who looked like a nightmare monster, all bone and leather and teeth like silver knives.

Shepard knew the stories from Shanxi. _Claws like a fucking tiger, we thought it was dead but it was alive enough to rip Lien's face right off... their blood’s not like normal blood, it kills plants and it burned Wei’s hand... they worshipped something underground, I swear they did, they took the prisoners there and they didn't come back, I swear..._

Vakarian was wearing a pointy hat with tasselled earflaps, and a shirt covered in unnecessary buckles, and denim jeans. Seriously. Blue denim jeans cut to fit his long crooked legs, with zips right down the outside of both legs and holes for the hip and calf spikes. Skin tight, like he wanted everyone to admire his bony little arse. 

_Wonder whose attention he's after? Men, women... whatever the other options are for turians? Hell, maybe he's into asari, that's apparently a thing people do?_ Yeah, that was a much safer line of thought. _The crested ones are generally male, right, I'm not confused? Because those jeans are completely flat between the legs._

“I don’t normally eat insects,” she said, “but this grub isn’t bad.”

“Homeworlders, huh?” Williams shook her head. “Most places I’ve lived, darra were standard livestock. Keep the cage in the backyard, feed them grass and kitchen scraps...” She grinned. “And when they live long enough to turn into beetles, you can bet on beetle fights!”

She took another bite.

“Beetle fights?” Vakarian asked. “Isn’t that a little unfair to the beetles?”

“Probably a little,” Williams mumbled through her mouthful. “They never got hurt much, though. Not much else to do after school.” 

Best not to mention the Reds’ attempts at dog fighting - Shepard didn’t know Williams well enough to be sure how she’d react, and fuck knew what an alien cop might think. Instead, she took another bite of dead beetle. _Look at me, being all diplomatic and cosmopolitan..._

She’d done her duty on Elysium and she’d done her duty on Torfan, and if the best way to protect humanity was to turn Spectre and smile sweetly at the Council, she’d get that job done too. 

She tried to subtly adjust her dress blues with her less greasy hand. Not subtly enough - Williams smirked.

“Yeah,” Shepard said. “Bloody image consultant put me in elasticated underwear. I’m throwing it out tomorrow. Makes me look like I’ve got a waist, but it digs in like you wouldn’t believe.” 

She'd scrubbed off the ladled-on makeup already. It had actually hidden most of the burn scars, and that was just creepy, like they'd tried to clean away Torfan.

Williams snorted. “My sister says the only way to make shapewear comfortable is to go old-school, wear a proper lace-up boned corset. They’re not bad, honestly. Wait. I better not say that in public. Udina might send his minions to tie you into one of those.”

Shepard shook her head. “I reckon I’ve got the perfect body when it comes to wearing heavy armour, shooting pirates, the time my rifle jammed so I had to use it as a club.” She adjusted her breasts, which were propped up on a stiff wire-and-padding shelf. “Might look a bit blobby in skintight pleather? I’ve got a cure for that - it’s called not wearing skintight pleather!” 

Williams nodded. “I’ll save you, ma’am. Should the mission require tight pleather and/or corsetry, I’ll be honoured to wear it in your stead.”

Williams would actually look good in a tight, trashy club dress. Hem halfway down her long brown thighs, so that someone could gradually tug it upwards, and no underwear... 

Which was a totally inappropriate way for a warship’s XO to picture a non-commissioned officer, but hey, no harm in imagining.

Vakarian loomed over her shoulder, pale eyes drilling into her skull. “Should I buy you a... non-insect? Seaweed pie? Or I think they have Earth _tom-aa-toes_?”

“Thanks,” she said, “but it’s really pretty good.” 

"Hey, Commander," Williams said, "if you're having trouble with the bug thing... homeworlders eat sea bugs, right? Crab, lobster, those things? Does it taste better if you call it boneless lobster?"

"Good point. Always liked prawns. Giant boneless prawn?" She thought hard about prawns and took another bite. She’d chosen literal grub off the menu, and she wasn’t going to back out now. 

If Shepard looked at it like a sensible person? Out of all the helpful aliens she'd met these last few days, Wrex should be the scary one. Just as inhuman, and enough muscle to snap Vakarian between two fingers, and he’d shot Fist like he was chucking out a used tissue. Shepard could cope with violent thugs. Hell, she’d been one. But a half-ton violent thug who could bounce bullets with his face and kill with his brain? He better appreciate his Alliance-contractor paychecks, and he better keep liking her.

Still. Wrex took up a lot of space, and... she’d get used to the smell, it wasn’t a bad smell, just strong... but he didn’t give her the creeps to look at. His eyes moved like normal eyes and his teeth weren't any sharper than human teeth. His face had some padding to it, and soft lips, not just skin stretched tightly over bone.

Back when Shepard was a kid, no one checked under their beds for krogan.

She ate the grub and mostly enjoyed it. The fake sky turned redder and the flowers opened wider. A bunch of glittery songbirds scuttled round her feet - they ran on all fours like mice - snapping up dropped crumbs.

Another turian strolled by, turned to stare at them, sat on the next bench and kept staring. He wasn’t obviously armed and Vakarian didn’t react to his presence.

Staring Guy was average looking. Dark brown all over, long decorative crest, white swirls painted round his eyes. Neon yellow shirt and orange leggings - not what you’d expect an assassin to wear!

“So,” Vakarian said, “what sort of entertainment do you feel like? Icy Crosscurrent - that’s a hanar zero-g dance troupe - are giving a free performance in Nine Blossoms Plaza, with drell singers to translate. Or there’s an amateur comedy evening at the Treehouse. All the clubs round here are just ridiculously overpriced, but they hardly ever have brawls requiring police presence, and most of them aren’t even mafia-owned.”

“Is the amateur comedy any good?” Williams asked.

“Hmm. Sometimes?”

The weird staring turian bobbed his head back and forth a few times, stood up slowly, and yelped “Spectre Shepard! Congratulations! We’re so honoured to meet you!”

Oh. _That_ kind of staring. She could live with that.

_Alliance poster girl powers... activate!_

She gave him her brightest smile. _Wait. You're not supposed to show them your teeth... eh, he lives on the Citadel with asari everywhere, he'll cope._ "Honoured to meet you, Citizen..." 

"My name's Jaera Allick, Spectre!" He strode closer and Shepard stood up quickly - Allick was easily a head shorter than Vakarian, but that was still tall enough to loom over her. "I work in information technology at the Digeris embassy. She's Drusa."

There was definitely nobody standing behind him. Williams moved up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Shepard.

Vakarian made an odd thrumming noise.

"I'm so glad the Council are finally seeing sense!" Allick went on, still twisting his head back and forth in a weird, vaguely pigeonlike way. "This should be the first step towards decent representation for -" he jerked his head forwards - "everyone!"

"What - _everyone?"_ Vakarian sounded unimpressed.

"Well, obviously there are issues with _certain groups,_ but I think we can both agree," he stared pointedly at Vakarian's denim jeans, "that galactic government relies far too heavily on tradition? On what worked when Councillor Tevos was a maiden?"

"Oh, definitely. Still, can we focus on the humans first, before we start trying to bring in volus and minor species?"

 _Certain groups,_ eh? 

_You ask a krogan, would he rather find a cure for the genophage or fight for credits? He'll choose fighting every time._

Wrex seemed like a smart man. He'd probably make a fine scientist, if anyone had ever let him near a university.

Quarians would be a _certain group_ too... yeah, Vakarian was all for showing humans round the Citadel, but somehow Tali hadn't scored an invite. _Should have asked her myself if she wanted to come. Do that next time. Wrex too, if he seems like he’ll behave._

_This is the centre of galactic civilisation, all shiny and noble, but teenagers need shotguns to defend themselves? You sure there's not a better civilisation we can join up with?_

Shepard technically qualified for Indigenous Australian status, Gadigal or Eora or something like that. She'd never been sure what that meant to her - she'd mainly seen her parents on supervised visits, and her least useless set of foster-parents had been Jewish, so she occasionally had the urge to light candles and eat sacred bread - but it had to mean _something_ , right? 

“Glad we’re not a certain group or a minor species,” snapped Williams, who’d apparently been thinking the same way. "Do we become one if we piss off Sparatus enough?"

“Er,” Vakarian said, “obviously not minor? And you’ve behaved pretty well, other than -“ Williams glared at him and he shut up.

“Maybe we can stop arguing, _kalvir_?” suggested Allick. “I didn't vote for Sparatus either. And Drusa’s getting worried.”

Vakarian blinked. “Sorry.”

There was definitely no one standing behind him. Shepard had to ask. "Who's Drusa?"

Vakarian waved vaguely at Allick's neck.

"Sorry about the argument," Allick said. "It's just... I was so impressed with the defense of Elysium..."

Ah, that was sweet of him. 

"And Torfan!" he went on. "The war almost ended, in one stroke!"

...Torfan. Well. They’d won.

Would have been more dead Marines in the long term, if she’d retreated. Blinks would have fortified.

"And I was wondering..." Allick said. "Could I, ah, get a photo of you holding Drusa?"

"Sorry, Citizen. _Who is Drusa?"_

Vakarian sighed. "The _baby,_ Commander."

Baby?

Allick shoved one hand through a slit in his shirt collar and pulled out a ball of brown fluff the size of an orange. "Meet Drusa!"

It raised its little round head and fixed Shepard with familiar deep-set eyes. Two tiny, three-fingered hands emerged from the fluff and wrapped around Allick’s finger.

Williams made a delighted squeaking noise.

Shepard would have assumed the little scrap was a pet, but Vakarian had definitely said "baby", and the eyes were the same, and it had the same little twitching... feelers or vestigial jaws or whatever those mandibles actually were... "Er. How old are they?" _Baby?_ That thing turned into _that_ thing?

N-training covered the best ways to kill aliens, and a bit of field medicine. Life cycles hadn't been on the curriculum!

"Just six days." Allick stroked the tiny creature's head with a fingertip. "She's _finally_ got the hang of walking. Still working on your sleep schedule, yes, aren't you, constantly awake little thing, which is why I'm showing her the walkways while my wife puts the older kids to bed."

Drusa swung her head around to glare at one of the Presidium songbirds. Allick curled up his fingers to hold her more securely. "No," he told her, "that is not for eating, for many reasons.”

Williams shook her head. “I think I need some remedial xenobiology. I had no idea you -“ she turned to stare up at Vakarian “- used to be a kitten.”

He nodded. "Oh, I made an adorable kitten.”

...He was over seven feet tall, and broader across the shoulders than Anderson, and he was bringing his own bedding on board because he didn’t fit in an Alliance sleep pod. What the hell.

(Scrawny, though. Wire instead of muscle, legs like stilts, and his waist was no thicker than his thigh. In a hand-to-hand fight, if you could get in close and exploit his high centre of gravity, you'd have a chance.)

“Wait,” Williams said. “ _That’s_ why you’ve got that..." she prodded her collarbone, "bone shelf thing...”

Vakarian shrugged. “Well, yes. What, did you think we evolved it to store datapads and spare ammo?”

Drusa had stopped watching the birds and was waving her tiny little hands at Shepard.

"Yes!" Allick said. "Commander Shepard! Hero of Elysium! Excellent role model!"

... _Me? Role model? Fuck, I'm going to have to start acting like a role model, aren't I? Be an... inspiration to little girls everywhere... everywhere includes Palaven, they have little girls there, dunno if asari have little girls but they've got little somethings..._

 _"_ Er," Shepard said. "I can hold her for a photo? She doesn't bite or anything, does she? I, ah, haven't had much to do with babies?" Any kind of baby, really, unless you counted actual kittens. Human babies needed neck support, right? 

"Hasn't bitten anyone yet!" Allick said cheerfully. "And I toileted her and washed her half an hour ago. Just cup your hands. She won't jump out, and if she does, she won't be hurt. Or not much."

Shepard held out her hands.

It was only vaguely like holding a fluffy kitten. Drusa breathed quick and fluttery like a little kitten, and had the same sort of bright, curious gaze, but she was far more solid - stiff spine, hard armour plates under the fluff. 

She started to yawn. Then her entire face split open, mouth gaping well past a right angle, little needle teeth _everywhere._

"Vakarian?" Williams said. "Please tell me your face doesn't do that!"

"Course it does!" he said, and demonstrated. _Oh dear God._ He could touch his lower jaw to his throat without bending his head. He could probably fit someone's _head_ in his mouth! His back teeth were wider than the front ones and marginally less spiky, like they were designed less for killing things and more for slicing up dead things... look, cat comparisons are good when you need to make aliens sound less alien, but a cat that size is called a _tiger._

Look. If he was going to come aboard the Normandy, Shepard needed to desensitise herself to... that shit. He couldn't help how he'd evolved.

Drusa closed her mouth and went back to looking innocent. She was warm and she had little clinging hands and feet. Shepard held the tiny creature in front of her chest and made a recruitment poster face, while Allick ran around snapping pictures with his omni-tool.

Behind Allick, Vakarian was pulling faces at Williams, who looked half appalled and half fascinated. Apparently his feeler-things only flared out a few inches sideways, but they could swivel up to lie along his cheekbones, or downwards so that most of his teeth showed with his mouth closed (Shepard was pretty sure that was an angry expression), and he kept wobbling his nose like a bunny.

He stuck out his tongue and just kept on sticking it out further and further. It was thin and dark blue and snake-shaped and _he just licked his own chest, what the hell, tongues should not do that._

_And now he’s licking his own eyeball._

Williams, showing true Alliance competitive spirit, crossed her eyes and licked the tip of her nose.

“Stop that!” Allick snapped, and Shepard felt her shirt toggles pop open.

 _What?_

Drusa had both hands wrapped around the shiny gold upper toggle, and she was investigating it with her face.

Allick took another picture.

“Please delete that one,” Shepard said. Her collar had peeled open far enough to show most of her cleavage and a sliver of padded support garment. No one needed that on the news.

Gently tugging the tiny alien away didn’t work - she’d hooked her claws right through the shirt fabric, so it came along with her. And it made her clutch at Shepard’s hand with her feet, and her toe claws were surprisingly sharp.

Allick, damn him, was giggling instead of doing anything useful.

Drusa let go of the shirt with one hand, waved it around wildly, and grabbed onto the middle of Shepard’s bra.

Well, better for that blasted thing to get torn than her shirt... Shepard tugged a bit harder.

Quick as a flash, Drusa switched both her feet to the padding-and-wire support garment and vaulted out of Shepard’s grasp.

_Shit!_

She didn’t fall. She thudded into Shepard’s upper chest like a small warm rock with hard edges, and sat there in a comfortable nest of breasts and foam padding. Shepard tried to scoop her up and got a warning snap of teeth.

_I can’t let her bite me! My blood might be toxic!_

"Allick," snapped Williams. "Your kid. You make her behave."

“Er, sorry,” Allick said. “Let me just...”

Drusa glanced at him and squirmed herself down between Shepard’s breasts. It was a tight squeeze, but she managed to vanish up to the shoulders before her feet hit underwire.

Allick put his gloved hand disturbingly close to Shepard’s chest and made a deep thrumming, growling noise. Drusa showed him all her teeth and hissed.

Vakarian snorted. “No, kid! That is not where you live!”

She was extremely solid, and breathing in quick little pants, and one of her bonier body parts was sticking right into Shepard’s sternum.

“Why?” Shepard demanded of an unfeeling universe. Next thing, Khalisah al-Jilani would probably leap out of a bush.

Allick was still making rumbling noises, without effect.

The bushes looked unoccupied, and thankfully no one was walking past. _Although isn’t the Presidium crawling with hidden cameras?_

Vakarian stopped cracking up for a moment. “She probably likes being warm. Humans have a high body temperature, right, like little space heaters, that’s why you’re always eating. She looks comfortable... hey, Allick, we could just sit here and wait till she gets too hot!”

Allick sighed. “None of my other kids ever tried that. I think we’ve found a whole new field of aliens-are-cushions jokes." He squinted. "Heated mattresses?”

Well, he didn't seem worried or upset, so hopefully there was nothing actually wrong? _Is she supposed to be breathing that fast? Probably?_

“What?” Williams yelped. “You’ve been comparing me to a _cushion?_ ”

Vakarian snorted. “Stop being oversensitive, Sergeant, I know what you’ve been calling me where you think I can’t hear, I’ve seen Jurassic Park. If I can take that as a compliment, you can be a cushion!”

Williams opened her mouth and shut it.

“Jurassic Park?” Allick tilted his head to one side. “Do I want to know what that is?”

“No,” Shepard said hastily. “No, you don’t. Williams, stop that yesterday!”

Williams probably would make a better cushion that the average Marine, or at least her chest would...

Drusa rested her head on the nearest cushion-like surface and closed her eyes. Shepard could feel her relax.

“I am not sitting here and waiting,” Shepard declared. “Not with my shirt half off and the paparazzi chasing me. Find me a public bathroom so I can undress.”

Fortunately there was a public toilet round the corner.

It was intended for turians, krogan, drell and anyone else who excreted uric acid - on the Presidium, that meant turians. There was a sharps bin labelled TEETH. The vending machine sold mostly body glitter and face paint and... rough-edged pebbles? In one corner there was a box of worn-smooth pebbles, and balls of matted hair and occasional little bones, and some of the hairballs were still wet. _What, like an owl? Ick!_ Shepard looked awayin a hurry. 

_How do we handle that on a human ship? Bathroom waste bin, in with the used tampons? Seems a bit indiscreet..._

Vakarian chuckled softly. “Hey Allick. Has she made _ka lura_ yet?”

“I’m a siarist, _kalvir_. From Digeris. We don’t do that.” He paused. “And this is absolutely not the time to start!”

Vakarian dissolved into helpless laughter. _What?_

“Er...” Williams said. “What?”

Allick sighed. “Old homeworld superstition. You put various things in front of a baby, and, ah... divine their future by seeing what they grab.”

Williams groaned. Shepard chucked her shirt at Vakarian's head. He caught it and started smoothing out the claw marks.

One upside to the constrictive underwear: it fastened up the front. Shepard just needed to un-hook the top several hooks, and she could scoop out the sleeping alien invasion and hand her back to Allick. 

Drusa twitched slightly, and kept sleeping. Allick tucked her back down his shirt.

“Right,” he said. “Greatly honoured to meet you, Spectre, and, ah... sorry. Should I pay for a new shirt?” 

It’d hadn’t torn - it’d be fine after a wash. “Don’t worry.”

“Right,” he said again. “Very honoured, and I wish you all the best of luck.” He opened the bathroom door and strode away.

Best of luck. Best of luck dealing with Saren Arterius and his synthetic army and whatever the _fuck_ they thought were doing.

“I think I’m looking forward to Saren now,” she said, fastening her shirt. “C’mon, I hunt Traverse warlords for a living. Saren and friends are a few levels scarier than your average Hegemony-funded pirates, but it still boils down to find him, put a bullet in him, problem solved, Udina and the bloody Council can stay out of it and hand us our medals when we’re done.”

"Oh _god!"_ Williams yelped. " _Saren_ used to be all... little, and fluffy..." She cupped her hands and stared into them. "And he probably wasn't a cyborg back then!"

Wait. What? "Didn't his older brother raise him?" _General_ Arterius, the vicious old bastard himself. He’d been blown to atoms twenty-six years ago, but Earth hadn't stopped cringing yet. He’d cared for a little round fluffball? Loved it like that? Didn’t compute!

"Not from that young," Vakarian pointed out. "Saren was at school before their parents died. With that age gap, though, I imagine Desolas always did a lot of babysitting."

Williams shook her head. "Right. I suppose everyone used to be a baby." She rubbed a hand across her eyes. "The _General._ Heck, for all I know, maybe the General was a decent parent!"

Shepard frowned. "Doubt it."

Vakarian shrugged. "Who knows. It's not as though we have access to an unbiased opinion." He squinted. “Is it even possible to have an unbiased opinion on Desolas Arterius?”

Saren, as a large heat-seeking cotton ball. "Well," Shepard said, "I've got good news about the current version of Saren! He won't fit in my bra!"

Williams made spluttering noises. "Eww! Let's all hope he doesn't want to!”

“Actually, while we’re in here...” Vakarian said.

He bought a brush and a tube of silver glitter from the vending machine, and started glittering up his face in the mirror.

You could look at him and then you could look away and imagine the sort of Alliance marine who wore a sniper’s eyepiece on shore leave - some tall, pretty kid, almost as good as he thought he was. _Remember Corporal Wazir, showering with his visor on because he "felt blind" without it? Tried to write a song about how awesome we all were? His parents always sent him home-made fudge - remember him handing it round, on the shuttle to Torfan?_

“Vakarian?” Williams said suddenly. “You used to be a kitten. A darling little powderpuff kitten. Show us all your baby photos.”

He glanced away from the mirror, mouthparts twitching. “I’ll... show you mine if you show me yours?”

He was sixty years younger than Executor Pallin, and wearing blue jeans, and that phrasing had to be intentional.

”Deal!” Williams declared. “I get access to all your baby photos, including the embarrassing ones. And I’ll give you all my baby photos. So if you catch me spreading around your embarrassing pics, just show everyone the flowerbed photos and the one with Dad’s uniform as revenge.”

He nodded and put the glitter - inevitably - through his shirt collar. “Soon as we get back to the Normandy. Now, where were we? There’s a free sculpture exhibition at the old docks, but half of it’s pretentious rubbish. Or we could go to the lower markets and try to find Lieutenant Alenko?”

Alenko had wandered off looking for bargain omni-tool upgrades, and they hadn’t seen him since.

Williams grinned. “Poor LT. Missed the evening’s main entertainment.”

“Main entertainment?” Shepard raised her eyebrows.

Her grin widened. “Hey, I always heard the Citadel had a lot of hot shirtless women... thought they had tentacles, but you know...”

Maybe Shepard hadn't set the best example, but _that_ was over the line. “Flattering, Sergeant, but highly inappropriate!”

Williams saluted. “Ma’am!”

“Brain mouth filter, Sergeant! Acquire one!” 

“Yes ma’am! Er... sorry!”

And now she was picturing Williams twirling around a pole. Naked. Covered in silver glitter. Private lapdance. All her long shiny hair loose and _she could just tug the elastic out of her bun and it’d spill out everywhere, I wonder what it smells like..._

_Brain brain filter, Commander! Acquire one._

_Damn it. Why couldn’t we have met when we were in different chains of command? Or a bit closer in rank, even?_

_Am I just going to be picturing her naked at random moments, all mission long? And carefully not getting drunk on shore leave, lest inappropriate things happen? Thank you, hormones. Very helpful._

And, yes, they’d be sharing a shower for the foreseeable future. _Stop thinking about that!_ They’d also be sharing a shower with the entire crew, and Vakarian, and - did Tali need showers? And Wrex. Was there an etiquette for naked krogan? Better ask Wrex.

“Hey Vakarian,” Williams said, “what was he calling you? Kalvir or something? It didn’t translate.”

“It’s a respectful pronoun,” he said. “Slightly formal, but not... properly formal? He was acknowledging me as an honourable warrior - I usually get soldier’s pronouns, right, wearing blue?” He tapped the alien-blood-coloured stripe across his nose. “And he was making a point about being older and, _in his opinion,_ wiser than me.”

“All that in one word?”

“Oh yes. The old Cipritine-type languages are full of pronouns like that, very precise levels of respect, and Turian Common was supposed to be ultra-practical but somehow the pronouns bled in.”

Williams squinted. “How long did it take you to learn all that in school?”

“Not long. My actual native language is worse.” He nodded to Shepard. “Standard advice for aliens is to just call everyone Citizen and let the translators handle it. That shouldn’t offend anyone." He paused. "And if it does, blame a translator malfunction.”

They wandered in the general direction of Nine Blossoms Plaza.

_LT?_ Shepard texted Alenko. _Vakarian's showing us an ethnic jellyfish dance. I'll send you the coordinates._

He replied immediately. _Hey, is that the Icy Crosscurrent thing? I'll be there as soon as I've finished buying souvenirs._

“It must be overwhelming,” Vakarian rumbled, “having to deal with so many aliens.”

“Er. Yes. A little.”

Williams nodded frantically.

“I’m still getting the hang of elcor body language,” he went on. “And, hey, did I mention I grew up in a little boring town on the homeworld?”

“No?”

“So I only saw aliens on television till I was... anyway, the first time I ever saw a salarian, I marched up to him and told him he was a bad TV man and ordered him to get back in the TV.”

"You _what?"_

"Hey, it made sense at the time! He just stared at me until... actually, after a couple of seconds, the giant eyes started creeping me out." He turned towards Williams. "So I ran away."

Shepard could understand that. "Salarians are a bit... not what I'm used to." And they said they'd never crashed anything at Roswell or probed anyone, but you had to wonder... 

The first alien she'd ever seen was an asari. She'd run like hell, because everyone knows they get into your brain and suck out your life force. _Definitely_ an overreaction, in hindsight. The asari had been wearing an I CLIMBED SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE T-shirt, and carrying three bottles of white wine and a toy kangaroo.

_Wonder if Alenko's buying any... toy Keepers? I hope he's not buying toy Keepers - those things just aren't right. Citadel craft beer?_

_"_ I'm going to get so many funny looks, serving on a human ship," Vakarian complained. "Can we make sure everyone knows I was born after the war? And no one in my entire extended family was involved?"

"I can show everyone all your baby photos!" Williams chirped. "That should help with the intimidation factor!"

He groaned. "Thank you for the creative thinking, Sergeant. I'll try not to yawn in public, I promise not to eat anything that still looks like a dead animal, I already know what male humans look like naked so I won't scream... No, seriously. Please do show everyone my baby photos." He sighed. "It should help."

**Author's Note:**

> -I'd love to get some constructive criticism - if you think there's anything I could do better with this story, please tell me, either in the comments or on Tumblr.  
> -Credit to @bronzeagelove for the jeans.


End file.
